The Rosetta Stone by Dominique Valbelle
In July 1799 a French officer serving in Bonaparte's army in Egypt made an interesting discovery. A granite slab unearthed near the small town of Rosetta bore texts in three different scripts - Greek, demotic Egyptian and hieroglyphs. For the first time there was a real hope of decoding Egyptian writing. The Stone was soon stolen from the French by the British Army and removed to the British Museum in London. Now began a remarkable and highly competitive intellectual adventure in which some of the best minds of the time took part. Thomas Young, a remarkable English polymath and physician, and Johann David Akerblad, a Swedish diplomat, made valiant progress towards a solution, but the code was finally cracked by the tireless French orientalist Jean-Fran?ois Champollion. The texts of Ancient Egypt could now be read again after fourteen centuries.
John Ray is Sir Herbert Thompson Professor of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Selwyn College. He has previously held posts in the British Museum and at the University of Birmingham, and has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Yale and Chicago. He is the author of Reflections of Osiris (Profile 2001) which David Starkey called 'a triumph' and Tom Holland 'the best introduction to ancient Egypt I've read' (Daily Telegraph).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781861973443 |
| ISBN 10 | 1861973446 |
| Title | The Rosetta Stone |
| Author | Dominique Valbelle |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Profile Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2002-07-25 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |